


The Taller Game

by Rachiella3



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluuuufffff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7137182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachiella3/pseuds/Rachiella3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After he turned 12, his mother died. Our game of "who's taller?" ended. He wasn't allowed to come over and play after the accident. His father launched his new design company and the poor kid's modeling career started to take off. He had always been a pretty boy. Very compliant, handsome, polite, charming.</p><p>I never saw much of him over the next few years, except for in magazines that is. He had become a teenage heartthrob and girls from everywhere across the country were drooling all over him. I cut out every picture of him I could find. They were plastered on my walls, on my ceiling, even on the floor.</p><p>He was becoming a distant memory and I didn't want to forget him, but I thought, perhaps, he was forgetting me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taller Game

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by ceejles' comic on tumblr
> 
> You can check my out on Tumblr @rachiella3 (my main blog) or @shutup-lance (my Voltron side blog).

We'd been friends for as long as I could remember. He was always shorter than me and I relished in the glory of being superior to him.

When we were 4, he was a couple inches smaller than me. He could stand on tiptoes and pretend to be taller than I was for the 10 seconds he could keep his balance. We would always play tag and he tripped over anything and everything. Every time he fell he went crying to his mum and said it was my fault because I was bigger than him.

I used to say, "it's not _my fault_ you're so short I can't see you!"

When we were 8, I was almost a full head taller and he could barely use the tiptoe trick anymore. Him and I would play games of kings and queens, princesses and knights in shining armor. I was always the knight. He would sit all pretty in one of my frilly pink dresses that Grandmother kept sending over and I would save him from dragons and villains because I was the biggest and the bravest. He hated me so much.

He always wanted to be the prince but I was having fun so I always said no. He wanted to be the knight that swept the princess off her feet and saved her from untold peril. Once he asked, "So if I grow taller than you one day, I'll get to be the hero . . . and you'll marry me. Right?"

I remember answering, "how 'bout we see if that time actually comes, shortie!"

When we were 10, his head leveled just above my shoulder and I was nicknamed the giant whenever we played hide and seek. My role in games transformed from the savior to the monster and I'd chase him around my yard for hours on end.

Those days were good. I wished they could have lasted longer.

After he turned 12, his mother died. Our game of "who's taller?" ended. He wasn't allowed to come over and play after the accident. His father launched his new design company and the poor kid's modeling career started to take off. He had always been a pretty boy. Very compliant, handsome, polite, charming.

I never saw much of him over the next few years, except for in magazines that is. He had become a teenage heartthrob and girls from everywhere across the country were drooling all over him. I cut out every picture of him I could find. They were plastered on my walls, on my ceiling, even on the floor.

He was becoming a distant memory and I didn't want to forget him, but I thought, perhaps, he was forgetting me.

The two of us met for the first time in what felt like forever when we were 15. He had started to attend public school again and had been assigned to my class - the only class of our grade. I was half a head shorter than he was.

We clicked instantly as soon as we saw each other and I don't think I could've been more relieved that he remembered me. He came over at lunch times and my parents would make sandwiches and give us assortments of pastries and sweets every now and then. I truly had missed him a great deal.

More than often we were paired up for partner assignments and would spend hours together creating posters and things. He mocked me constantly because I wasn't the tallest anymore and wouldn't ever let me forget it.

He would say things like, "who's the shortie now?" or, "how's the weather down there? Is it warmer than up here?" and it drove me insane. I guess one could say I really had it coming to me.

* * *

It was a sunny Tuesday afternoon when he walked home with me to work on our team project. It was just the two of us since Alya and Nino were both (conveniently) out sick that day. He stopped me on the sidewalk with his iron grip on my wrist and jerked me to a complete halt.

"What?" I asked irritatedly as I turned around to face my best friend.

"Well," he started with a sly look on his face, "I remember . . . when we were kids . . . you said that if I ever grew taller than you, you would marry me."

An explosion of strawberry and rose hues erupted on my face, spreading from the tip of one ear to the other. "I-I did?"

Adrien cupped my chin with his thumb and forefinger, tilting my head so I was looking up straight into his eyes. "Marinette," he spoke, his voice was calm and soft yet there was an edge of sly satisfaction in it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I had been completely silenced.

He leaned closer until his lips were a butterfly's wing away from my ear, and then he whispered, "do you see me now?"


End file.
